Four-time Tony Award nominee Kelli O’Hara will return to Broadway this winter as the lovestruck Iowa housewife Francesca in the new musical “The Bridges of Madison County,†the producers said on Wednesday. She will star opposite the theater and television actor Steven Pasquale (“Rescue Meâ€), who will play the roving photographer Robert Kincaid; the characters were made famous in the 1992 best-selling novel by Robert James Waller and the 1995 film adaptation starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood.
Ms. O’Hara and Mr. Pasquale are currently playing a far less happy couple Off Broadway, the wife and husband in the musical “Far from Heaven†at Playwrights Horizons. Ms. O’Hara has been part of the “Madison County†project for some time, but her current pregnancy is keepig her from joining the tryout run of the show in August at the Williamstown Theater Festival; Elena Shaddow will play Francesca there opposite Mr. Pasquale.
The musical is being staged by Tony winner Bartlett Sher, who directed Ms. O’Hara in her Tony-nominated performances in “South Pacific†and “The Light in the Piazza.†The score is by Tony winner Jason Robert Brown (“Paradeâ€) and the book by Tony winner Marsha Norman (“The Secret Gardenâ€). The show is scheduled to begin performances on Jan. 13, 2014, at the Schoenfeld Theater and open in late February.
